"All historical novels are failures or, at best, metaphors, dressing up the present day in anachronistic disguise," seethes the fictional editor/translator of the long-lost 13th-century manuscript that forms the basis of The Chronicle of John. And at a single stroke, David Flusfeder damns, mocks and questions the entire worth of his seventh novel. It's daring stuff.
John the Pupil, on the surface at least, is a simple travelogue that tells of the titular character's quest to deliver Franciscan friar Roger Bacon's Opus Majus to Pope Clement IV (in real life, Bacon's theories on science, maths, grammar and philosophy were indeed delivered to the pontiff). Along with Brother Andrew and Brother Bernard, he fends off the sinister attentions of Simeon the Palmer, distractions of the flesh, sickness, and sore feet as the trio journey by foot across Europe. It's a road movie of sorts – the jacket is way off beam in suggesting this is "Umberto Eco seen through the eyes of Quentin Tarantino" – but there is a wonderfully cartoonish quality to the vivid characters they meet, and the muck, grime and violence of medieval life is effortlessly convincing.
The attendant notes from the 21st-century editor are a gamble, however. Perhaps Flusfeder is just being a tease when one suggests that the whole story, and with it our sympathies for John, might have been erroneous. But it does run the risk of making John the Pupil rather too clever-clever. Best to dispense with the musings on unreliable narration and historical novels and just enjoy the journey.
